Page 16 of Synnr's Ride

The air was a bit grittier out here, even if carbon scrubbers did their best to keep pollution to a minimum.

Wooden row houses lined the street, most of them seemingly held up by nothing more than pride. There were gaps between a few, buildings that had collapsed and were nothing more than empty pits or piles of rubble.

A few Synnrs sat on the steps outside of one of the houses and watched Hanna as she rode down the street. Were they calculating what they could get for the bike?

Maybe she was being rude. Just because they were poor didn't mean they were thieves.

All the same, she hoped there was ample storage for her ride.

Her new home was one street over, and the degradation of the other block hadn't spread this far yet. Two of the yards had flowers blooming in careful plots. Children played in another yard, though they were using sticks for toys. Most of the houses needed fresh coats of paint, but none had fallen down. The worst she could see was a couple of boarded up windows.

It would be fine. She hadn't expected to be staying at the palace.

She pulled onto the gravel driveway of her address and spotted a small storage shed in the back. Her bike could go there later. Hanna wouldn't forget all of her training just because she'd switched sides. She was examining a new building, and until she was absolutely sure it was safe, she wasn't storing her getaway vehicle.

She entered the entry code into the keypad lock and stepped inside.

And found Jori sitting at the kitchen table, pointing a blaster at her face.

6

Jori'd beenon tough missions before. One involved living in a swamp, in theactualswamp, not in some shack on the water, and he'd gladly trade places with his past self.

At least there he'd never been tempted to kiss the giant people-eating reptiles that called that terrain home.

He shouldn't have been surprised when Hanna walked in the front door. Pointing the weapon? Not a good look. But he'd spent the hours before that burying himself in data about the Rebel Demons.

Theft. Smuggling. Prostitution. Murder. Links to dozens upon dozens of crimes, but only a few charges had ever stuck. Morn Kark was clever and unafraid to get his own hands dirty.

With those thoughts swirling in his mind, Jori had been a bit... jumpy.

Luckily, Hanna didn't hold that against him.

Over the last week, he'd discovered that she was an okay roommate. She didn't hog the bathroom. She left the kitchen tidy. When they weren't going over strategy for the job, she kept to herself.

And it was driving Jori nuts.

He certainly hadn't dealt with inconvenient erections while fighting off swamp creatures.

He wished he could say it was all some grand scheme by the evil Apsyn spy. But he didn't think Hanna even realized she was doing it. The row house was small, their quarters tight. And that meant they sometimes got a bit too close for comfort.

Passing each other in the hallway that led to the bedroom? Torture.

The bedroom?

He might actually die.

The house had two bedrooms, but there was only a bed in one of them. The other was filled with storage equipment and a small office space. He understood why. They were going in as a romantic couple. If, for any reason, someone from Kark's crew came to their place, they needed to play the part.

But Jori was sleeping on the couch.

It was too short for him and had an uncomfortable spring that poked into his back, but he wouldn't sleep a wink if he stayed in that bed with Hanna. Going into the room to grab a change of clothes was enough to send his thoughts spiraling somewhere they couldn't go. If they were sharing a bed...

He only had so much control.

Hanna seemed unbothered. And he was caught between annoyance and relief. A nasty part of him that he tried to keep buried wanted her suffering from this undeniable want just as much as he did. But a bigger part, a better part, was grateful that he wasn't making things impossible.

He had reasons for disliking Hanna Karsyn. He didn't want her anywhere near this job or the Synnr military. But those things were professional. He didn't want her thinking she was under some kind of... personal threat from him.

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